HAMILTON — Mayor John Bencivengo received a new township-issued vehicle weeks after being charged with corruption, and the federal case against him advanced further as the FBI served the township’s municipal government with a third round of subpoenas demanding information.

The township’s police department in recent days assigned a 2012 Chevy Tahoe SUV to Bencivengo in exchange for the mayor’s 2009 Ford Crown Victoria, according to Councilman Dave Kenny.

Federal prosecutors on April 26 charged Bencivengo with extortion, alleging the two-term Republican mayor entertained $12,400 in bribes from May 12, 2011, to July 29, 2011, as he was running for re-election that year. He’s accused of taking the money on a promise to influence how a Hamilton school board member would vote on a health insurance brokerage contract with the township’s school district.

Having a municipal vehicle is one of Bencivengo’s perks of being mayor, but John Kroschwitz, chairman of the Hamilton Democratic Municipal Party, said the mayor “should be forgoing anything of this nature at this point.”

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“He shouldn’t even be in office at this point,” Kroschwitz said of Bencivengo, who is scheduled to get a taxpayer-funded salary increase effective July 1. “He should be moving on, and the township should be moving on without him. His indifference to the situation is amazing.”

Bencivengo, 58, is free on an unsecured bond. He has resisted calls to resign or take a leave of absence, saying he’s “innocent” of the charges and that he continues to perform his mayoral duties and responsibilities without negatively impacting the township’s day-to-day municipal operations.

Democrat and former Bencivengo critic Vinnie Capodanno, who has become one of the mayor’s strongest allies in the wake of the corruption case, has defended Bencivengo receiving a new municipal vehicle.

“He has a 4-wheel drive they issued him because he goes in the snow, and they want to make sure he doesn’t get stuck in the snow,” Capodanno said. “You need to give him something that’s compatible for the mayor. You need a nice 4-wheel drive vehicle. I think it’s smart.”

The FBI served the municipal government and Hamilton Board of Education with subpoenas demanding information related to the Bencivengo case.

Hamilton Township Attorney Lindsay Burbage said the FBI hand-delivered him a third round of subpoenas May 24 as he turned over documents complying with the FBI’s second-round subpoena.

The latest subpoena demands Hamilton employee manuals for the years 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012, according to Burbage, who said this subpoena is “very easy to comply with.”

Burbage said the township’s most recent employee manuals are from 2011 and 2001, saying, “No township does a new manual every year.” He said he has until June 7 to turn over those two employee manuals to the federal government.

The FBI’s previous subpoenas demanded records on how the municipal and Hamilton School District spent federal money in recent years. The school district also had to turn over all of its records on health insurance brokerage firm Allen Associates; and the municipal government had to give the FBI all records of correspondence between Bencivengo, Robbinsville Mayor David Fried and Marliese Ljuba, an Allen Associates broker who secretly recorded Bencivengo allegedly accepting bribes.

“They’ve been very easy to get along with, and we’ve complied with everything they’ve requested,” Burbage said of the FBI.

Township Council in 2010 passed an ordinance that gave pay raises to township department directors and the mayor. At the time, Bencivengo was making $97,978 annually, and back then he said he would be “withdrawing personally from any increase in salary.”

It was confirmed the mayor took a pay raise when the news came out at a recent Township Council meeting that the mayor is currently being paid $108,211 under the 2010 salary ordinance. Under that ordinance, Bencivengo is scheduled to get a 3.5 percent salary boost to $111,998 effective July 1.

Bencivengo on May 4 wrote a letter to Council President Kevin Meara saying he would “forgo the impending raise that is scheduled for July 1, 2012.”

Bencivengo said his pledge to forgo the upcoming raise is because of the “circumstances surrounding the mayor’s position” and that “An increase in salary was not the reason I ran for the job and in no uncertain terms will not reflect on my performance.”

Members of the all-Republican Township Council suggested they may pass an ordinance that makes it legally impossible for the mayor to collect another pay raise.

Hamilton Township Democrats have called on Township Council to not only rescind the scheduled pay hike, but to also demand restitution from the mayor for the thousands of dollars in salary raises he has already taken.

The federal criminal complaint against Bencivengo said the mayor took a total of $12,400 in bribes over an 11-week stretch in 2011 so he could pay his taxes and personal living expenses.

About the Author

Sulaiman Abdur-Rahman has been working as a professional journalist since graduating from Temple University in 2007. Prior to his current stint at The Trentonian, Abdur-Rahman worked at The Philadelphia Inquirer and wrote a self-published memoir about his 12-month experience of living in Australia on a spouse visa. Reach the author at sulaiman@trentonian.com
or follow Sulaiman on Twitter: @sabdurr.